You simply were not burning it hot enough. The pipe damper was cutting the draft too much and limiting the fire. It only keeps heat in the stove by slowing the draft which in many old stoves that were not airtight was effective. That you have a baro means that you don't need the manual damper. Using both only makes sense with draft so strong that it can not be controlled otherwise.

You should set the baro to about .04 using a manometer. Stack temperature is going to be what was designed into the stove to begin with and as long as draft is not too high there is not much you can do about it. That hotter fire is going to be more efficient too. It doesn't mean much with lower stack temp. if it means that more CO is going up the chimney un burnt.

McGiever wrote:Nobody think the stovepipe being cooler is a clue to stoves performance? He said he can hold his hand on pipe indefinitly. Might be some flyash accumulated and restricting exhaust flow in a horizonital pipe section.

First there needs to be more heat produced before wondering how to move too little heat around.

im leaning towards this ^^^, something is weird if you can hold your hand on the pipe indefinitely Now... maybe that performance is a direct relation to airflow changes in that room (thats a lil' harder to decipher) ... but that stove is clearly not kicking out the heat it was before!

I never had to touch the MPD before other than when I shake down, so never gave that a thought.

So what exactly do you guys mean "burn the fire hotter"? If my stove is at 450 with every closed and 450 with the MPD open a little, how is that hotter? Am I missing something or over thinking this?

I do have a strong draft here and the fire will go out of control without the baro. So, from what I read, I could theoretically open up the MPD all of the way as long as I have a baro? So maybe I should play around with where it works best open.

Between the top of the door and where the air comes out for the blower. However, I have one on the side also near the top front. The one on the side usually shows 50-100 degrees cooler than the one above the door. Any ideas which one would be more accurate? I haven't moved their location in three years other than to clean them off. I know they are used only as a guide. When I got the stove, I searched for the best place to put the thermometer and really couldn't get a concise answer and even called Hitzer to see where they would put one. They said it is not needed but to just put it anywhere. After a while you will be able to notice the temp range you like to have it at. I understand the fact that even if I put it at the bottom of the stove after a while of burning it might show 300 and if it changes lower I might have to get the stove hotter, but that doesn't help if I over fire the stove because of an inaccurate location of the thermometer (the actual temp of the stove might be 600 -700 degrees).

What do people mean when the say burn the stove hotter and give it some air? Isn't 450 degrees with everything closed and 450 degrees with the MPD open a little, still 450 degrees?

JohnnyV wrote:I never had to touch the MPD before other than when I shake down, so never gave that a thought.

So what exactly do you guys mean "burn the fire hotter"? If my stove is at 450 with every closed and 450 with the MPD open a little, how is that hotter? Am I missing something or over thinking this?

I do have a strong draft here and the fire will go out of control without the baro. So, from what I read, I could theoretically open up the MPD all of the way as long as I have a baro? So maybe I should play around with where it works best open.

Isn't 450 degrees with everything closed and 450 degrees with the MPD open a little, still 450 degrees?

Yes......I still insist you have no insulation. Someone mentioned R factor without explaining what it is actually. AN R factor is calculated with a temp source of 75*. It is the amount of heat that transfers through a VACUUM at that temp. Across a certain distance. When the temp outside is 0*, and you want it 75* inside, you are well beyond the parameters of what an r factor is. You do not have a vacuum in your wall, you do not have anything trapping air like fiberglass (which I hate), but it is better then nothing. You have a somewhat dead air space, depending on the outside sheathing and siding, and you have 1/4 inch of foam and foil, which I believe was more correctly stated to be about 1.45 R factor. You have built a traditional plaster and lathe house from the early 20th century with a piece of foil behind the lathe. Crank the stove up like the old timers did and buy more coal.

Klook,One remote possibility is that by covering the walls, if it made a space between the sheetrock and the foil, it won't do the most important of insulation's jobs. That is to stop ALL air movement within that space. And not just heat going outward, but up and down.

When a space gets wider than a certain distance - If I remember from reading about window designs, I think it's about 1 inch or more gap - the cold air near the outside wall can sink down past the warmer air in that wall cavity that is near the inner wall. What happens is, a convection current sets up in the wall cavity with the heavy cold air pushing the warm air up and outward nearer to the cold outer wall where it sheds heat, becoming more cold air. The cold air hits the warm inner wall pulling heat out of that wall. Supposedly that natural driving force of convection can remove heat faster than if the cavity had a narrow air gap, or obviously, if was filled.

Possibly even faster than like before with no wall covering, but just the foil insulation ?????

This is one of the reasons why double glazed windows are supposed to have an advantage over single glazed with a storm window. The double glazed don't have a wide enough air gap for cold air to pass warm air, so they stay put acting as better insulation.

I am getting the heat from it now. I have left the mpd open a little and shook the crap out of it and poked down through the grates again. Granted it is a little warmer out today (26 and windy/snowy) but it is 76 in here. I went and got a few buckets of pea coal to try a mix with the nut coal and see what that does. It seems like what ever was wrong may have worked itself out (mpd open a crack), but won't know for sure until Sunday night/Monday as it is supposed to get 5 for a low, 18 for a high.